Yale Professor Blasts Fiorina: She has a ‘psychopathic denial of reality’

Yale professor Jeffrey A. Sonnenfeld blasted GOP presidential candidate Carly Fiorina on Monday, questioning her fitness to run the country based on her pattern of fabricating facts.

Sonnenfeld pointed out Fiorina’s public claim that videos from the Center for Medical Progress show a fully-formed fetus being picked apart by Planned Parenthood workers while its heart is beating and legs kicking. The clip does not exist, yet Fiorina refuses to acknowledge it.

Sonnenfeld also attacked Fiorina for her repeated claim that she led Hewlett-Packard through difficult times. “I feel like the proverbial mosquito in the nudist colony, I hardly know where to strike first,” Sonnenfeld said about claims by Fiorina that she was a good CEO of Hewlett-Packard. “There’s so much wrong with this, but the thing that comes through clearest is this — if we weren’t on TV I’d say almost psychopathic denial of reality. As you saw even the creators of that hoax Planned Parenthood critique, even they say this is not the footage that she says it is.”

Fiorina was a complete failure as CEO of Hewlett-Packard. She ended up cutting tens of thousands of jobs as a result of her mismanagement, and disastrous merger with Compaq. Arianna Packard, granddaughter of company co-founder David Packard, stated: “I know a little bit about Carly Fiorina, having watched her almost destroy the company my grandfather founded.” A former employee of Fiorina was even more blunt: “she is an a**hole of magnificent proportions…pathologically unable to give a s**t about anything but herself.”

Also, Fiorina portrays herself as a hard-liner on Iran. However, during her six-year tenure at Hewlett-Packard between 1999 and 2005, her company sold more than $100 million worth of computers and other high-tech equipment to Iranian customers, despite US export sanctions at the time that prevented her from doing this.

Recently, Mother Jones compiled a killer list comparing Fiorina’s lies to the facts. Here are a few of their findings:

1. Claim: Fiorina was not fired from her job at Hewlett-Packard because of performance.

Facts: In February 2005, Fiorina was dismissed from her post as CEO of HP by a board of directors that she’s since called “dysfunctional.” At the time, she roundly told reporters that the firing was not about performance. She struck a similar note in her 2006 memoir, Tough Choices, writing that after more than five years leading HP, by December 2004 she had she had pulled the company toward success. She cited a strong fourth quarter, despite a third-quarter “stumble.” In fact, the stumble was an enormous shortfall: HP missed its earnings projections that quarter by 23 percent. “When companies miss by a few pennies, it doesn’t mean all that much,” the New York Times wrote of Fiorina in 2006. “When companies miss by 23 percent, Wall Street starts wondering if the people at the top have a clue what’s going on in the various businesses.” The Times also pointed out at the time that although Fiorina wrote in her memoir that HP missed its number on her watch on three times, “in fact, the company fell short at least nine times on either revenue, profit or both.”

2. Claim: The Securities and Exchange Commision investigated allegations of HP’s violations of the Iran embargo and cleared HP management of any knowledge of the problem.

Facts: Last week, several news outlets reported that Fiorina was CEO of HP when the company allegedly sold products to Iran via a third-party company in Dubai, potentially a violation of the US-Iran sanctions. When conservative radio host Sean Hannity questioned Fiorina about the allegations last Friday, she said, “The SEC did a thorough investigation and concluded that no one in management, myself included, knew anything about it.

In fact, there’s no evidence that an SEC investigation of the allegations ever happened. The SEC did inquire about the company’s Iran dealings in a 2009 letter, after Fiorina had left the company. But there’s no evidence that a ruling clearing management of any knowledge was ever issued. What’s more, in their response to the SEC, HP indicated that management was aware of the Dubai-based company Redington Gulf’s sales of HP products to Iran, but that such sales were legal under US law.

3. Claim: Fiorina told Fox News host Chris Wallace last week that Redington Gulf was “not honest” with HP about selling HP products to Iran, a potential violation of US-Iran sanctions.

Facts: Redington Gulf was open about its sale of HP products to Iran. The company issued a press release in 2003 saying that its relationship with HP began in 1997 to focus on “one market–Iran.”